Moog Theremini!

@jesper: Thanks for duplicating the experiment at your studio. At least there's some hope, anyway. As far as latency goes, I doubt seriously that'll go away, any time soon, if at all. That's because the raw theremin CV is having to go through processors, and in turn, that data has to drive the synth side which is actually using memory, and then that has to be processed again into audio signal to be dumped to the output jack. Perhaps a faster processor, and faster memory would help. Certainly more efficient coding would be in order, too.

"Thanks for duplicating the experiment at your studio. At least there's some hope, anyway. As far as latency goes, I doubt seriously that'll go away, any time soon, if at all. " - Thomas

Hi Thomas,

I agree, dealing with latency is far more difficult. Fixing the linearity issues should be quite simple (as was discussed before) simply changing the pitch oscillator board for one competently designed and having a healthy antenna voltage (such as Dewster's design) will go a long way towards fixing the problem.

With a good signal from the oscillator its likely that the averaging of the (post heterodyning) period could be reduced. I think it unlikely that this period is converted to a voltage (but with Moog, nothing would surprise me any more) and expect that a counter derives a number for the processor, this number being averaged over n cycles.. The more stable the oscillator, the less cycles should perhaps be needed - but it comes down to how the beast was "designed", what the difference frequencies are, the counter clock rate, all that sort of stuff..

However - with a good oscillator, even if it meant re-writing all the firmware, someone competent should be able to make it faster.. And fix the other idiotic things at the same time.... But lets see - The EW came out in 1994? And they havent even buffered the oscillators or put ESD protection on it yet!

Fred.

Well, I intend to take a couple of good things away from this.

1. Moog reached out to a thereminist for feedback.

2. They are now aware of Thierry and his EW mod.

"1. Moog reached out to a thereminist for feedback."  - GordonC

The horse bolted - could someone please close the barn door ASAP?

"2. They are now aware of Thierry and his EW mod."

Someone might also want to send them a fax and let them know there's this thing called the internet, which has TW on it with some of Bob's schematics (on the off chance they lost them).  Those poor guys are living in a vacuum.

"Someone might also want to send them a fax and let them know there's this thing called the internet, which has TW on it with some of Bob's schematics (on the off chance they lost them)." - Dewster

ROFLMAO ;-)

Fax? - You sure you dont mean teletype ?

(I actually have one of these in my loft somewhere - used it with my first "PC" - a Cosmac 1802 ;-)

Fred.

< losing my near religious faith in Moog because of the theremini has led me to look closer at everything about Moog - and the lack of care for theremin customers seems to go back a long time - long before Bob passed away even.. >

"Fax? - You sure you dont mean teletype ?"  - FredM

Good point, they probably don't have a fax machine.  Anyone here got a carrier pigeon handy?  Pony express?  Know how to do smoke signals?

I have been curious about the new Moog Music THEREMINI ever since it was introduced last spring. Most of the criticism of the instrument has been negative - some of it extremely negative - so I decided to order one and find out the truth for myself.

The THEREMINI arrived a couple of days ago, I have spent a few hours with it, and from the point of view of a precision thereminist, I am deeply disappointed. I do not believe that if Bob Moog were alive today that he would ever have permitted this instrument to see the light of day. He would certainly never have permitted his name, in which he took great pride, to be associated with it. 

In the evolution of the theremin, this is definitely a step back.

I had hoped to make a video using the THEREMINI, showing people that with a bit of patience and practice the instrument can sound really good, but there are some major flaws in its "CLASSIC THEREMIN" function that prevent this. 

As most people here know, the THEREMINI is not a heterodyne instrument. It is a gestural digital synthesizer. It is also a perfect example of an instrument designed by engineers and technicians who do not play, and who have no idea what a serious thereminist requires in regard to configuration, linearity and speed of response. 

The very first presentation I saw of the THEREMINI featured a Moog Music sales rep at a trade fair touting the virtues of the instrument and adding, parenthetically, as if it were unimportant, that she did not actually play the theremin herself. 

Would you believe a car salesman who raved about the way a particular vehicle handles if that salesman admitted he didn't know how to drive? I doubt it!

Because I own several theremins, I am used to wonky configurations, and linearity that is pinched at the top and stretched on the bottom. I can usually adjust my playing after a couple of minutes to accommodate the characteristics of an instrument no matter how bizarre it may be. There is one thing, however, about the THEREMINI that I cannot compensate for and cannot adjust to - its lack of response.

Gordon Charlton, on one of the Levnets, recently discussed the problem of what I think he referred to as 'delayed reaction time' from the THEREMINI. This is the FATAL FLAW in the instrument. This is what makes it useless for precision playing at anything close to the "professional level". I have tried every possible setting and configuration to minimize this but to no avail. It is part & parcel of the instrument and it cannot be corrected or compensated for. 

In a nutshell, I found that my hands and fingers moved too fast for the digital sound generating engine of the instrument. It cannot follow vibrato the way a heterodyne theremin can, or even the way the synthesized sound of the Ethervox VOICE TWO or the SERIES 91 can. Instead, it lags and compresses so that you do not get the sound you are creating from your gestures. It's like driving a car that can only go 40 mph. You can put your foot to the floor if you want, but you'll never go faster than 40!

Frankly, Moog Music should be ashamed of itself. After all the lip service they pay to the "beloved" memory of Bob Moog, you'd think they could come up with something that would honor his genius and his 50 plus years of undying devotion to the theremin. 

Any suggestion that the PITCH CORRECTION function can help people to learn to play with accuracy is false.....but we already knew that. As for the menu of other sounds available on the THEREMINI they may have some appeal for FX players and those looking for a gestural toy.

I did expect the "CLASSIC THEREMIN" program to function pretty much as what its name implied: a "classic theremin". 

It doesn't. 

For me, the problem seems to be an inability of the instrument to track rapid movements of the pitch hand and fingers. After quite a bit of experimentation, I believe this is related to the "pitch correction" function. Theoretically, when the "pitch correction" knob is turned fully clockwise, the instrument quantizes pitch so that what you hear is a chromatic scale. When the knob is turned all the way counterclockwise, you should hear a smooth slide between notes - and that is what you DO hear provided you move your hand relatively slowly through the playing arc. If you move too fast, it compresses and you do not hear the full frequency range. 

I don't have the slightest idea how the instrument actually works, but Bob Moog discussed the theory with me once (at the Portland theremin fest back in '97) and suggested that you could divide a semitone into very small increments and control them with a muting rotary knob so that you could increase or decrease pitch correction. 

My personal take on all this is that what we are really hearing when the pitch correction function is supposedly "off" (i.e. all the way counterclockwise) is not the smooth, uninterrupted "gliss" we hear from a heterodyne theremin.  It is in fact an incremental slide whose bits are so small they sound seamless to human ears. But if you move too fast, it jumps the pitches it does not have time to trigger. That **could be** why, when compared to an Etherwave or E'Pro, it is unresponsive to vibrato.

I would not describe this as a "delayed reaction time", although it might seem like that. That phrase implies that the instrument reproduces what I do with a slight lag. What I experience is more of a "slow reaction" or "no reaction". Whatever you want to call it, it is very frustrating and makes any emulation of a genuine heterodyne instrument impossible. 

As for the other programs on the THEREMINI menu, they are all available elsewhere on far more sophisticated instruments, and most of them can be more accurately played with a keyboard rather than a gestural controller. Of course, you have to be able to PLAY a keyboard in order to do that, and a lot of people do not want to have to put in the time it takes to learn it. 

"The very first presentation I saw of the THEREMINI featured a Moog Music sales rep at a trade fair touting the virtues of the instrument and adding, parenthetically, as if it were unimportant, that she did not actually play the theremin herself."  - coalport

IMO this is the crux of the matter.  Apparently no one at Moog Inc. plays the Theremin well enough to evaluate their latest creations, yet they don't feel the need to call on musicians like yourself to help them out during development.  It's quite odd.

The slow reaction time is consistent with a very low-pass anti-zipper filter on the data stream between the controller section and the synth section.  It's my entirely unfounded conjecture that they're sending MIDI or similar across this link, which would also account for the obsession with hard min/max notes in the calibration procedure.

"It is also a perfect example of an instrument designed by engineers and technicians who do not play,
and who have no idea what a serious thereminist requires in regard to configuration, linearity and speed of
response. " - Coalport

Hi Peter,

I do not believe engineers need to be able to play to develop a great musical instrument, but believe that if they are not capable musicians (and even if they are, or think themselves to be) they are more likely to get things right if they are in contact with musicians who can evaluate their ideas and prototypes.

It certainly helps if engineers are competent in using the equipment they are developing / designing, but I do not believe this is essential - you dont need to be a pilot to engineer a gyroscope, or a surgeon to develop a
endoscope with surgical manipulators..

What you do need is a passion for detail, an interest in the clients application, the willingness to spend the required time for study, AND, most important, to keep communication with the client open at all times, all through the development, and get them to evaluate every proof-of-concept and prototype before you even dream of saying "its done".

Most solo developers (myself included) do not have a thereminist next door we can visit daily, and must fall back on our own resources (our crappy playing skills for example) during the bulk of any development - and this costs us dearly as we make expensive mistakes which we might otherwise have avoided - or worse, we make mistakes but refuse to accept that our "great idea" was a pile of shit.

M-ugh had none of the above excuses. There are loads of thereminists who I am sure would have been happy to advise them at every step of the project.

This is where having a "home" like TW helps us a bit - a place where one can at least have some contact with some of the best thereminists on the planet without imposing on them - with luck, we can avoid gross mistakes (like latency) long before we even start developing anything using a topology that will cause this (Latency is, however, something that any engineer who has done any serious research would have seen to be an important matter - the fact that M-ugh got this wrong clearly shows that either the engineers were utterly incompetent, or they were instructed to ignore the issue as management had no interest in the players needs or a quality product)

It continuously hurts every time I use the name "Moog" with reference to the theremini - its not "Moog"! - so f I think I will call the company who made that toy "M-ugh"

Fred.